BNPL can be a fee-free way to manage cashflow for an essential purchase but keep track of the payment schedule
Buy now, pay later (BNPL) is a form of credit that lets you spread payments for everything from clothes, jewellery and white goods to concert tickets, hotel rooms and takeaway meals.
Continue reading...A compelling and fitfully harrowing child’s-eye account of a mother’s unravelling
Stefan Merrill Block was nine when his mother pulled him out of school. It was the early 1990s and the family had recently moved from Indianapolis to Plano, Texas, where Block’s father had started a new job. While Block and his older brother, Aaron, had been wrenched away from their schoolmates, their mother had left behind work, a social life and her best friend, and found herself isolated and rudderless. But then she discovered a new purpose: taking charge of her son’s education.
Homeschooled reveals how Block ended up spending five years deprived of the company of his peers (including Aaron, who continued going to school) and at the mercy of his mother’s unpredictable moods. She had decided school was stifling her younger son’s creativity and that mainstream education wasn’t right for a boy of his sensitivities.
Continue reading...After a decade at the top, the Bake Off winner is reclaiming her career and refusing to soften her edges. She discusses racism, gaslighting – and why comfort food is more important than ever
In a food world where the trend is for protein and weight-loss injections and sugar is the supervillain, Nadiya’s Quick Comforts seems somewhat contrary. There are golden syrup dumplings. There is a chapter devoted to deep frying, with cheese balls and ingenious deep-fried cannelloni.
“If I could write an entire book on deep frying, I absolutely would,” says Hussain with a laugh. “This is how I cook, this is how I eat, this is how I show love to my family. Everything in there is stuff that my kids absolutely love.” It’s about balance, she says – there are also lovely recipes for soothing plant-based dal and delicious noodles – because “I think anything that’s an extreme version of itself is dangerous”.
Continue reading...The president’s lengthy speech to Congress contained myriad inflated, misleading or simply false claims
Donald Trump officially made the longest State of the Union address in history on Tuesday night, with broad claims about the successes achieved during the first year of his second term.
But the speech that stretched across more than an hour and 41 minutes was filled with strong statements, many of them inflated, misleading or simply untrue.
Continue reading...Amid Trump’s lies and xenophobic rants, people struggling to pay bills and make ends meet are unlikely to be moved
He wanted to give the king’s speech. Donald Trump entered the US House chamber on Tuesday like a medieval monarch, with Republicans lined up eager to touch his royal robes (or, in two cases, grab a selfie with him). But within moments, the illusion was shattered.
As the US president strolled by, soaking up adulation, Democratic representative Al Green of Texas held aloft a handwritten sign: “Black people aren’t apes!” – a reference to Trump recently sharing a racist video depiction of Barack and Michelle Obama.
Continue reading...I was in New Orleans for work, without travel insurance, when the car crashed into me. In the months I spent recovering, I began to think seriously about how I treated my health
The SUV slammed into me at a crosswalk, where I had right of way. It was 2024 and I was on the first night of a work trip to New Orleans. Time slowed down as I flew 2 metres through the air and crashed on to the road in what felt like slow motion. When I managed to stand up, there were waves of adrenaline juddering through me. My friend, Brandy, and a group of strangers helped me to the side of the road, and it was then that I remembered my annual travel insurance had expired the week before. In a prim, defensive tone, like a dowager who’d just had a fainting spell and resented all the fuss, I insisted that I was perfectly fine and didn’t need an ambulance. Then I blacked out.
The paramedics arrived and, despite my protests, they wouldn’t take no for an answer. On the stretcher, I started calculating how much money I had in my current account, how much I could put on a credit card and how much I could plausibly ask to borrow from my parents. My lack of insurance was entirely due to my own fecklessness, but being forced to run these sums with a head injury, after begging not to receive help that I obviously needed, was an almost comically bleak experience.
Continue reading...Throughout the speech, Trump seemed tired. He had difficulty reading from his teleprompter; he gripped the podium with a tightness bordering on desperation
It is one of Donald Trump’s unique talents that he reveals the absurd obsolescence of long-held traditions. In presidential election years, is screaming bloviations on stage make the exercise of gathering the candidates together seem futile. In power, when he divorces facts from policymaking and relies instead on myth and grift to guide his decisions, he renders useless and impotent vast fields of expertise.
When he lies in public, and insists that his fantasies and distortions will dictate the course of government action, he makes those of us in the news business wonder if there’s any point, any more, in gathering and printing the truth.
Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
Continue reading...Thousands more people across Devon and Cornwall could join case against water firm
A group legal claim against South West Water alleging sewage pollution into coastal waters is harming businesses and individuals has been expanded across Devon and Cornwall.
Thousands more individuals could now join the first environmental community group legal action against a water company over the impact of sewage pollution.
Continue reading...Researchers discover rare periods of a few thousands years when climate unexpectedly awoke from slumber
During the ”snowball Earth” period about 700m years ago, Earth’s climate shut down. The planet was encased in ice and insulated from seasonal variations: spring, summer, autumn and winter all stopped. Or at least that was the theory.
Recent examination of some ancient rocks from the west coast of Scotland have now overturned that thinking, suggesting there were periods during snowball Earth when the climate woke up.
Continue reading...Brown is said to be driven by moral anger but insiders suggest he may feel guilty for bringing Peter Mandelson back into government
Before Gordon Brown sent a draft of his 6 February comment piece on the Jeffrey Epstein scandal to the Guardian for publication, he asked friends whether he had gone too far.
The former prime minister had written that he found it “hard to find words to express my revulsion at what has been uncovered about Epstein and his impact on our politics” and the “time is overdue to let in the light”.
Continue reading...A traditional Kashmiri curry and spicy street food bring the best out of this flavourful meat
Mutton rarely gets the attention it deserves. It’s a mature meat, so is naturally sustainable, and it has a depth and richness that younger cuts simply cannot offer. That robustness is exactly what makes it so rewarding to cook with. Mutton’s bold character stands up beautifully to spices, aromatics and slow cooking, so it’s ideal for curries, stews and braises; on the grill, meanwhile, it takes on smoke in a way that enhances its complexity, rather than overwhelming it. You’re unlikely to find mutton in the supermarket, so you’ll need to make a trip to the butcher’s (many halal ones sell it) or order online.
Continue reading...Surface-to-air missiles, which are capable of shooting down aircraft and ballistic missiles, will be located on Yonaguni, Japan’s westernmost island
Japan will deploy missiles to a tiny island near Taiwan within five years, its defence minister has said, in a move that is likely to inflame tensions with China.
The surface-to-air missiles, which are capable of shooting down aircraft and ballistic missiles, will be located on Yonaguni – Japan’s westernmost island – by March 2031, Shinjiro Koizumi said.
Continue reading...Ruim de helft van de Nederlanders heeft genoeg contant geld in huis in het geval van een noodsituatie. De rest heeft minder dan het adviesbedrag van 70 euro per volwassene en 30 euro per kind in huis, of helemaal niets. Dat meldt De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) woensdag na onderzoek onder ruim 1700 consumenten.
De Nederlandsche Bank en andere instanties, verenigd in het Maatschappelijk Overleg Betalingsverkeer (MOB), adviseerden vorig jaar om genoeg munten en bankbiljetten in huis te bewaren in het geval dat elektronisch betalen, zoals pinnen en online bankieren, uitvalt. Met contant munt- en briefgeld zouden 72 uur overbrugd kunnen worden.
Volgens DNB heeft 19 procent van de ondervraagde consumenten het exacte adviesbedrag thuis liggen, 39 procent heeft meer dan dat. De rest van de Nederlanders heeft minder dan het adviesbedrag in huis. Bijna een op de tien consumenten heeft helemaal geen cash, volgt uit het onderzoek.
Cyberdreigingen
Van de mensen die minder contant geld hebben dan geadviseerd, geeft een op de drie aan dat zij er "nog niet aan toe zijn gekomen" om het advies op te volgen, meldt DNB. De centrale bank stelt ook dat 71 procent van de consumenten op de hoogte is van het advies.
Nederlanders krijgen het advies om het contante geld te bewaren in een mix van biljetten en munten. DNB raadt daarnaast aan om een fysieke pinpas te bewaren voor het geval betalen met telefoon of smartwatch niet lukt. De voorraad contant geld kan geleidelijk worden opgebouwd door af en toe wisselgeld apart te leggen, oppert de centrale bank.
Toegenomen geopolitieke spanningen en cyberdreigingen waren vorig jaar aanleiding voor het MOB om het advies over contant geld in huis uit te brengen. In het MOB zitten ook consumentenorganisaties, banken en het ministerie van Financiën. De voorgestelde bedragen zijn berekend door het Nibud.
De bewaarmethode om appels vers te houden dateert uit de jaren 80 en wordt nog altijd verfijnd.
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Researchers from Georgia Tech have found that the supply chain for threat intelligence data is susceptible to adversarial action, and proposed a method to improve data sharing that they think will make it stronger.…
